Issue(s): New Mutants #52
Cover Date: Jun 87
Title: "Grounded forever"
Credits:
Chris Claremont - Writer
Rick Leonardi - Penciler
Dan Green - Inker
Terry Kavanagh - Assistant Editor
Ann Nocenti - Editor

Review/plot:
Last issue the New Mutants saw the darker side of Professor Xavier, which alienated, at a minimum, Magik and probably Mirage. This issue focuses on the students' relationship with their current teacher, Magneto. Until their return at the end of last issue, the group was assumed dead in the Mutant Massacre, so the first half of this issue is Magneto teaching them a lesson (and/or punishing them) by slaughtering them in the Danger Room with a simulation of the Marauders.

Magik bugs out in the middle of the session...

...and instead goes to Limbo to continue the fight against the now techno-organic S'ym.

Magneto tells Karma that he is doing all he can to locate her missing siblings, asking her to trust him and to not get involved herself.

And then Magneto checks in on Magik. He learns the true nature of her demonic side...

...and then she takes him to Limbo to show him what's happening there. Being made of organic circuitry, S'ym is easily handled by Magneto, but Magik says that her problems in Limbo are her own and she needs to take care of them herself.

But the fact that he takes an interest and offers to help creates a bond between them, the "demon sorceress" and the "evil mutant", and also seems to address the anger Illyana felt towards her friends for allowing Xavier/Karma to manipulate her last issue.

It's a nice gesture, but considering the seriousness of the transmode infection in Limbo, it's hard to see why Magik wouldn't let Magneto help. The idea that she needs to deal with her own problems makes it seem like it's meant to be symbolic, but "a girl's special place is invaded by a friend's father and gets infected" isn't a metaphor i want to, erm, explore.

Unrelated to Magneto, the New Mutants are also worried about the things they saw in the alternate timelines and wonder if they are fated to happen. Maybe Xavier needs to arrange a guest lecture from Mr. Fantastic on the theories of alternate dimensional time travel.

Half of this issue is wasted with the Danger Room simulation, and Rick Leonardi's kind of sloppy pencils makes it not that fun from just an art/action perspective. But i do like the issues where the New Mutants actually seem like they're in a school of sorts, and this issue shows promise with the Magneto/Magik bond. We're approaching Louise Simonson's turn on the title, though, and between that and Claremont's own inability to juggle so many plotlines and themes in a reasonable time, some things are going to get dropped.

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Magik says that her roomate Kitty Pryde and her brother Colossus are "an ocean away" in the hospital. The New Mutants are now returned to present day Earth and the relationships between Magik and the rest of the groups have been resolved for now, allowing for New Mutants appearances elsewhere.

References:

• Magneto can't use Cerebro to locate Karma's siblings (if they are even mutants) because it was destroyed in Uncanny X-Men #213.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Future History 101 will eventually become a class in the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. Guest speaker Deathlok's reassurence that hellish futures would not definitely come to pass was however somewhat diminished by his insistence of informing each student the precise probability of said hellish futures in percentages.

But hey! If you can avoid eating people, you might cure cancer, kids!

I think the idea is supposed to be that asking Magneto to kill S'ym would have corrupted Illyana further, like Storm killing Belasco did in the Magik limited series. That could have been explained more clearly. Of course, the irony is that NOT killing S'ym resulted in Maddie turning into the Goblyn Queen.

This soccer game leads directly into the one in Fallen Angels #1.

Why was Magneto unable to repair Cerebro after its destruction by Sabretooth?

Absolutely loved the interaction between Magneto and Illyana here:-) Along with Jean Grey, Illyana was Claremont's most tragic character.

I agree with Nathan - I love the interaction with Magneto and Illyana.

I mentioned before the idea of Magneto as headmaster as an allegory for Shooter and I think it might have been construed as a diss at Shooter - but I think Magneto is a stern headmaster who does care about his students. That sternness puts off some (Bobby, most notably), but can also get important results. That seemed to be what Shooter was like - very stern, but his reign as EIC is probably the creative high of Marvel, so there's something to be said for his discipline.

In the end, when Magneto "reverts", that role, of course, will be filled by Cable.

This is the final issue of the 9 member team that had existed since I first started regularly collecting NM (in #35), as Bobby and Warlock will disappear into Fallen Angels and by the time they are back, Xian will be gone and Doug will die. And then it gets weird and dark and weird again.

It does beg the question...I suspect, given the events in Uncanny X-Men #150 and 'God Loves, Man Kills', that Claremont always intended to have Magneto reform, or attempt to, at some stage, but it was Shooter who decided to have him lumped with the heroes by the Beyonder during Secret Wars. Was this something seeding what Claremont was already planning, or did Claremont choose to make damn fine lemonade from the lemons Shooter gave him? It was also down to the Beyonder, after all, that the ailing Xavier called out to Magneto to lead the X-Men (just prior to Secret Wars II). Coincidence?